It was in a cell of the prison of S----. The prison had not been modernized. It was not a red brick building picked out with white: a gaol in a harlequin's jacket. Nor was it a snug, free-stone, gentlemanly house, with big fetters and a figure of Justice over the door, looking half asleep under her bandage, and ready to drop both scales and sword. It was an old-fashioned English prison--not a bit the better for that--heavy, massive, soiled with the smoke of manufactories, and turning its black unmeaning shoulder to the street, with one window looking out, like the eye of Polyphemus, over the huge mouth-like door, where so many victims went in. The interior accommodation corresponded well with the unpromising exterior. Nobody could say he had been deceived into high expectations by the outside, when he found himself ushered into a cell of nine feet by six, with a grated window high up, a chair, a table, and a bed. It was just what the bricks in the wall foretold. There sat Chandos Winslow, by the table, with fetters on his legs. The magistrates were very fond of fetters. They fettered everybody and everything--oven their own intellects--and they instantly fettered Chandos Winslow, though the utility of the thing was not apparent, seeing that he could sooner have eaten the prison than got out of it; and the injustice of the act was self-evident, for he had neither committed nor been found guilty of any crime "worthy of death or bonds." Chandos was not alone, however. On the other side of the table sat a gentleman of a very prepossessing countenance, dressed in black, with exceedingly white linen. He was neither tall nor handsome, but his figure though slight was well formed, and his face, though certainly plain, was sparkling with high intelligence. There was a mildness in it too, which chastened the vivacity; and an earnestness which gave depth to the whole. You have seen him, reader, have you not, either moving the hearts of the jury, and shaking the opinions of the judge; or pouring forth in the Commons those rich, clear streams of convincing eloquence, which carried heart and mind away with them. He is gone! The brief bright career is finished! The grave holds him! Peace to his ashes! honour to his memory! And now he sat opposite Chandos Winslow gazing in his face with those large earnest eyes of his, and addressing to him a solemn and impressive exhortation. He had known him intimately for some years; indeed, they were distantly connected, for Lady Winslow had been a Devonshire woman; and the eminent barrister had come down at once, at a great sacrifice, to make himself master of his friend's case in person, more completely than he could have done, had he trusted alone to briefs and consultations.